2005
by Shadow-Nightfall
Summary: Just an idea that popped into my head. It's Alt R about who really won the battle at the Tree. Reviews and advice are welcome.


Disclaimer: I don't own the Dark is Rising sequence or characters. I just have a fixation for red heads :)

**A/N :** I've created a DiR forum if people are interested. It can be found under 'Forums - books' .

Alt R **Title : 2005**

The client entered the luxuriously appointed office. He crossed to shake hands and greet the tall, auburn haired man who had risen from where he had been seated behind his large polished wooden desk. The man was one of the best lawyers in the country and his office reflected his success. It was a corner office with glass walls giving onto the exterior and located on the 20th and highest floor of the building. The client could not therefore help noticing the magnificent view of the city sprawling outwards as far as the eye could see.  
Something else about the office also caught his attention; two long swords mounted upon one of the interior walls. It was, after all, not the sort of thing that one expects in a reputed lawyers office. And the swords themselves! The lower level one gleamed and didn't seem to be made of steel but of a slightly smoky white glass or crystal. Maybe it was an optical illusion created by the windows and the office lighting, but the delicate weapon seemed to have a pale blue flicker around its edges.  
The other sword was less fancy and looked to be made of steel. Again, a trick of the light made this one almost appear to drink in shadows.  
The lawyer that he had come to meet was in some ways no less alarming than this latter. The client could not exactly say why, but he had immediate impression of a wolf waiting for prey.  
The man noticed the direction of his client's momentary glance.  
"Magnificent aren't they Mr Peters? My personal touch. Please take a seat and we will discuss in more depth the issue that you contacted us about.."

He finished noting the time spent on each case though unlike his associates he was wasn't interested in the client paying by money. It was another 'currency' that interested him.  
It was lunch time and his clients had come and gone for the morning. As per his habitude, the man sat alone in his office. This isolation was a matter of personal choice though he did not doubt that the personnel nor even his associates preferred his absence to his presence. This did not bother him in the least. While his associates and the staff preferred to pass their break talking and gossiping, he preferred to use his time to idly read the daily newspaper or gaze out at the city below.  
He lounged in his high backed leather chair with a wolfish grace and leisurely leafed through one of the city's more reputable papers with a satisfied smile. Headlines of violence, theft and war leapt from the front page.  
There was a timid knock on the closed heavy wooden door to his office.  
"Come in." his tone was lazy and his personal secretary, a woman somewhere in her early thirties, entered holding a boxed set of what appeared to be five, or maybe six, thinish books and trying to hide her nervousness. Even after three years working here she still felt like a small animal facing a predator when in contact with her superior and it did not help that the predator languidly watched her every more.  
"The books that you ordered online have just been delivered Mr Lecavalier."  
He waved to his desk. "Thank you Ms Deluz. Just leave them over there please."  
She quickly complied and, as always, tried to quickly leave while doing her best not to appear like she wished to run.  
It amused him. She was the longest to date. In the fifteen years that he had been a partner in this firm of lawyers, normally his staff only lasted around a year and a half, sometimes less.  
'The Devil's Advocate' they called him in whispers behind his back. His teeth bared in a vulpine grin at the thought. If they only knew.  
He always controlled himself tightly in his secretary's presence, more so than around the others. Not sexually, she did not appeal to him that way in the least. No, around her he 'dimmed' his aura. He wished to keep her, not from efficiency (though she was), but because her name appealed to him, Marie-Ange Deluz. It amused him greatly to have one with such a name working for him.

Folding and putting down the paper on his desk, he picked up the boxed set and there were indeed five books. Holding the box upside down, he shook it once or twice so that the spines of the books were now slightly protruding from the box. It took them all out and laid them in a sequenced row and picked up the first entitled "Over sea, under stone". He studied the cover and decided that it might be still slightly too sinister. The kids sitting together over a parchment would suit his purposes better.He picked up the next book, "The Dark is Rising" and grimaced somewhat. He was much better looking than that! The illogical thought popped into his head that he looked like he was flamenco dancing on an undead horse and he chucked. He supposed it would serve its purpose. He looked closely at the sitting boy, now only a memory. Will Stanton and others had been 'dead' now for almost twenty eight years due to a tragic mid summer motor accident when he had been around eleven and a half. He did not grieve the brat in the least.  
He studied the covers of the following two books. The fourth was perfect for his designs. The final one in the series made him grimace. He'd have to get it changed. It did not suit his plans at all! He had read all these books before of course. It had been he that had, unbeknownst to the author, placed the idea in her mind to write them. He taken great care especially for how the last book ended.  
He laughed a soft, mirthless laugh. The idiot farmer had never made the choice that he had in the book. The weak minded fool might very well have believed in free will but he had loved his wife and had chosen to make a bargain to free her from the Dark's 'possession'. Naturally he had be devastated when the truth was revealed to him. Broken, his mind had then chosen to shut down and flee reality, his body hunched over in the Light's boat until during the final battle where the sight of his 'wife', the White Rider had unhinged him even more to the point where he had, for some unknown reason, seized one of the Great Signs and hurled it at her. The Light's circle broken, nothing had prevented a sword that was not the young Pendragon's from cutting the fateful silver blossom.  
His plan, the Dark's plan, was very simple: let foolish mankind believe that the Light had won and the forces of Darkness vanquished. Like the Devil, the greatest feat that the Dark wished to pull was convincing the world that it no longer existed.

End


End file.
